Thursday, November 29, 2012

journey to Lanzarote, day 5 & 6: rain/bows



Usually Lanzarote is an island that only seldom sees rain, but due to an unusual weather constellation that first brought southern winds and now northern winds, there is: rain. Or rather: strings of rain clouds between strings of sun. Shores light up with 180°, and yesterday, during a drive, we were right at the start of a moving rain front that moved at the ground speed of 80 kilometres per hour with us over the island. A photo from that drive, below. And a photo of the bay this morning, above.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring sunny skies again, as fascinating as the cloud / light effects are here. But then, the rain brought another good thing with it: the mood for revisions. I am reading through Masala Moments, my travel novel from India, and work on a slightly revised version for an e-book. It’s good, to revisit. 


And another revisit: a rainy diary entry from a previous stay:

Wednesday 1st December 2010
storm

there was a storm crossing through the island. it didn't get really bad, just lots of rain, some thunder and lightning, and rough waves.

the thing about Lanzarote is that it is almost always sunny here, with almost no rain. that's also how everything is built: for sun, and wind, not for rain. that's why rain messes things up here quite a bit. they closed schools on monday, and shut down airports temporarily. here, electricity was gone for a while, and the internet – which wasn't very good before the storm – now is only almost drowned.

now the sun is returning, but there are still strings of rain clouds passing through. yesterday was rainbow day: a cloud got stuck in the middle of the island, and kept drizzling, while the sun kept shining at the coast – and thus, there was a steady, complete 180° arc of a rainbow, shining for more than an hour.

later we went for a beach walk, to find that the storm waves took away a large part of sand, turning a part of the sand beach to stone beach. an ongoing creative process, too: the elements, water, wind, air.

it's good to be here, and even the storm was somehow fascinating, with the way it transformed the island for a day. 

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